Step 18: 2BEIGH3 3D Printer Operaton

Step 19: Current List of Materials that can be printed on a 2BEIGH3

These new materials will hopefully drive an increase in new designs by engineers, inventors, artists, hobbyists and anyone who needs anything that h...

How to make your own 2D CNC machine that converts into a 3D Printer and back to a CNC machine in less than an hour. Costing less than a CNC machine or 3D printer! (~$1,000.00) In addition, the design will go further than the traditional 3D printer printing ABS/PLA, and move forward to printing with new materials such as 3D Printing Nylon derivatives like tauman 618 as well as Acrylic and PET.

As a sample of the unique new properties of just one of these new materials, Here is a 3D Print of a Childs NYLON Prosthetic Insole on the 2BEIGH3 3D Printer.

With the 3D Printer configuration of the 2BEIGH3, you will be able to print parts that meet much higher standards for strength, flexibility and pliability. You will be able to design parts that can take 100's of severe strikes from a sledge hammer and still have a soft velvet like texture. You will be able to print parts that are almost equal to Factory Die Extrusions. And in some cases, parts that can not be Die extruded due to complexity. The term "delamination" will cease to be a concern. Nylon and it's derivative polymers have some great features that can be modified with fill density and layer height. Imagine being able to print a permanent coffee filter, bearings that need no lubrication, pliable IPhone cases, extremely tough bands that are so flexible you can tie them in a knot and they'll still support 200lbs!

My hope is that people use this guide to bring their designs and projects to tangible parts and objects as paper and CAD designs are great, but unproven, till built. My goal for this guide is to take the mystery out of both CNC and 3D printing in such a way as to eliminate that….”its all to overwhelming” feeling or thought. Because there are several other specific machine designs out there, both CNC and 3D Printer, please refer to this machine as the "2BEIGH3" or "2 by 3" as I will within this guide.

Been reading and rereading this tutorial and it looks doable although I feel it skips some explanations/steps here and there. At least for my total novice level.

The above aside, this machine seems to Work by moving the "table" around while a lot of other CNC/3printers I've looked at Works by moving the cnc part above the board around.Is there any reasons for going either way, or is it just coincidal how this particular machine ended?

Anyone made this in the EU with metric Measurements, or maybe even found Places to easily buy the items needed?

I think that I burnt out the z motor because I'm getting R between pairs. I swapped out my 4 motor (for the extruder) but I'm not getting movement. I swapped for the spare driver board, but when I try to jog the z motor, I get a clacking noise and no movement.

I took the load off of my z-axis to make sure that it wasn't a power issue.

Is there a good way to isolate the problems. I think that my controller is okay. I swapped cables for y/z and the z-job moved the 'y' axis. When I connected the z driver/motor to the y controller cable I still got the clacking noise.

On the basic CNC table, I'm noticing a bit of flex in the y-axis. The lack of a rigid bracket and the wood extension from the y-plate seem to be limiting factors. I have backed off the velocity and acceleration of the y-motor to keep the movement smoother, but mounting the motors has been the most frustrating.

I notice that you mounted the X-axis directly to the pipe rather than to the aluminum brackets as the smaller source project did. Trying to bolt a plate tangent to the pipe and level was also a challenge.

Lining up the threaded rod with the motor shaft and the guide nuts fastened to the platform left me wishing that I had a way to make micro adjustments. I used some set screws to position the z-axis nut because I don't have tools precise enough to create that cut-out on the z-nut (At least until I get the CNC tuned).

I can't believe this! I'm designing my own 3d printer/cnc mill and came up with the idea to use iron pipe as a low cost rigid framing material while installing a natural gas heater at my buddies dads house. I was 1" off and was surprised how non pliable even 6 foot runs are, I had to move the heater! lol I googled iron pipe frame 3d printer and find my idea was already in use as a framing material. So cool! I'm building one with 24" x 24" x 24" travel and also want to use a 400 watt liquid cooled spindle motor for some CNC mill/cutting/engraving action. Eventually I want to experiment with printing in carbon fiber by impregnating carbon fiber snippets 3 to 8mm long into both the hardener and resin then pumping them through a standard style mixing tube/extruder but designed in 2 halves made of highly polished stainless steel for easy cleanup. A laser cutting attachment would be nice as well but that is way down the road. Anyway, Great video, glad to see someone else had my pipe idea. Take care and keep experimenting. That's how progress is made...

First off, i can't make to make and hack this. one question though, did you seriously manage to build this for about $1000?! that is incredible. Also, is it truly capable of running the cnc router with an aluminum block?

I am in the preliminary stages of planning my 2BEIGH3. I was curious if there is any more information on the new and improved Threaded Rod Nuts. In your update it says you have uploaded a dwg of them. I can not seem to find them. Any help would be appreciated.

a) Go with the low precision table, then the higher precision, then the 3D printer in the standard size all on 1 inch pipe.

b) As above, but larger, perhaps MUCH larger on 1 1/4, 1 1/2 or even 2 inch pipe.

Are there any rules of thumb for this ? I suppose torsional stiffness "matters" somewhere along the line, but I'm thinking that MASS might also help a LOT.

c) Do the low precision, then the higher) precision tables, then do the 3D printer as a SEPARATE set of hardware, i.e. have both available at all times with no need to switch.

Part of my reasoning is that prints can take a long time, even a VERY LONG TIME and as an impatient fellow... I just might wanna MAKE something on a 2D table.

I know, more hardware takes more space and more money. This is probably something I should decide before I start, there are probably places to optimize for 2D CNC if I am not going forward with 3D printing on the same platform.

Ok, I have a question.... If the point of changing the XY table and drive methods is to exchange speed for torque, then aren't we making life way harder than it has to be? In my design, I can see a way to actually run both drive methods on the same table at the same time... well sorta. I could add a belt drive to both X and Y axis, which would be permanently connected. Then, give myself a way to disconnect the drive screw from the table and the X-carriage. It would then be run from the belt drives at high speed and low torque. The screw drives could be re-attached to run high-torque/low speed. The belt drives would not have to be disconnected at all. They would only have to have the power removed so the steppers can freewheel. The screwdrives would have no problem dragging the belt drives in tow, and I can't foresee any reason why it would hurt them as long as power was removed.

Can your table be modified in this way? If it could, then, assuming you run dual parallel controllers, you could simplify the transition to inserting 2-4 bolts and the flip of a switch.

I too started with the same simple frame in mind with the intention of simply 'upscaling' it. However, mine morphed into something completely new and different. I also have the intention of switching back and forth between 3D printer and mill/router. I would also like to add the ability to do PCBs and laser. I didn't plan for mine to switch motion/axis to optimize motion for the different modes though.... bravo. I figured when mine didn't move on the X and Y fast enough, I would make some linear trucks for each, and switch to belt drive. I built it with that future upgrade in mind, and should be able to do it easily. Right now, I have a fried X stepper, and I'm awaiting the replacement.....

I dont understand why this hasnt been done. Once you have you device with XYZ movement and a well thought out tool space, you can interchange any tool from router to engraver to extruder. If your frame is rigid enough to handle router cutting a extruder will be nothing

Congratulations, M D A..! You'll be pleased to know you're in good company. There are about 80+ (that I know of) makers around the world building or using/hacking the design. I will mention, that once I had the lower res unit working that I ended up actually cutting more parts on it, than I did when the higher res unit was up. Again, congratulations as I, and a lot of others here know, it takes interest and study to make these units work!taulman

It has been a while since I posted so I will give another update. Hopefully this info will help with anyone who is having difficulties like I am. Here is what I have found in the past few weeks. Missed steps: I scoped the outputs of the parallel port and the input to the stepper board. There was no missed steps at all. In my parallel interface board, there is a HC244 level converter connected to the lines of the parallel port. This does the 3.3V to 5V conversion so the rest of the downstream electronics are getting full 5V. Since this was not the problem I had to do some more hunting and found the decay mode drastically affected my stepper motors when running at higher RPM. I was running at 50% decay but I changed it to 100% decay and my "missed steps" problem went away. I hope this proves useful to anyone facing a similar aggravating situation.

Drive rods: I have been having frustrating problems with my threaded rod coming loose from the motor couplers or the couplers coming loose from the motor shaft. It is extremely annoying. Everytime I try to cut the thicker plastics, the rod decouples and I ruin my part. I tighten the set screws as tight as possible. I have already rounded out the hex keys on two or 3 of the set screw because I am tightening them so much and so tight. The lateral forces just seem to be way to high and are pulling things apart. I actually ordered some of the special CNC shaft couplers that are helically slit to help with misalignment issues. They help to smooth out the motion but the helix acts like a spring and creates a big dead zone when you reverse direction just like backlash but worse. They clamped around the shaft instead of set screws so they held much better but I had to remove them because of the dead zone. I am not sure what I am going to do about this. Until I can get this solved, I am dead in the water!

Slides: These have been a major thorn in my side. I know the slides were not going to be very precise but the ones I have are ridiculous. I already mentioned on my first post about the use of a tension spring on the Z axis slide. Well I had to do the same on one of the X axis slides. I noticed when I reversed direction in the X axis, they would shift in the Y axis as well!!! The farther they were extended, the greater the shift. At near full extension the Y shift just by looking at it was 0.050" or more!!! This was showing up on all of my test prints when there was an X axis direction change. I "solved" this problem just like the other. I put a tension spring from the end of the slid and attached it to the opposite slides aluminum U channel via a nylon zip tie. This created a nylon loop that would "slide" up and down the channel as the X axis moved and provided a constant force in the Y axis and greatly reduced if not eliminated the problem.

Plastics: When I was purchasing my raw materials, I was having a hard time finding the 0.220 acrylic so I went with 6mm polycarbonate from Amazon. Since it is a harder plastic, it is also harder to mill. I have checked out online for some tips on cutting this stuff and everything I read indicates you need low rpm and high feed speed. Wellllll, this setup is just not rigid enough to handle those kind of forces and my motors top out at around 22 in/min which is waaaaay below the recommended feed speeds of anywhere from 50 - 90 in/min from what I have read. The bit also seems to catch alot and pull into the plastic or pull the plastic up. I have these same problems with acrylic too. I have tried milling thinner acrylic and polycarbonate and these really cause a lot of problems because they ride up the helix of the bit and cause the thin plastic to vibrate a lot in the Z axis and just make a mess with the edge. I am experimenting with trying to do a 2 pass cut of the 6mm polycarb. If my threaded rod will keep from coming apart this might be a viable solution. Higher feed speeds seem to cause a lot more slop in the X and Y axis so I have been trying to keep everything running at 150mm/min or less.

Dremel: I have been dissatisfied with my generic dremel. I don't know if the name brand will be better but I am unwilling and unable to spend the cash to find out. I am convinced that a generic "rotozip" or compact router is a way better option to get more torque at lower rpms. Mine has stalled out too many times when I turn down the rpms to keep from melting the edges of the plastic. Plus you get a 1/4" bit capacity and likely a much better collet system to hold the bit. Anything has to be better than the one I have. It is a Genesis rotary tool from Amazon. Works fine as a dremel but the supplied collets don't hold worth a darn when you have high pull-out forces.

Well that is enough for now. I hope this helps anyone else that may be running into brick walls like I am. If anyone has any ideas please let me know. One of these days or months I will get this thing working!

Hi, rt, First, excellent detective work on the driver board and drivers. That is the single point of issues with all of the electronics I've seen. Next, on the coupler, while I didn't have any issues, I talked to one user that bulit a larger unit and he user a zero backlash from MMCarr Coupling Hub 1/4" Bore, 3/4" Outside PN 9845T102 using a red Durometer spider Next is the speed of the dremel....Seems I lucked out finding the right speed to cut acrylic with mine, but it eventually died from over use: ) I bought a cutout saw (dremel like) from Harbor Frieght But it didn't have speed control like the dremel. Runs way to fast. I found that there's a certain speed for each type acrylic, so I bought a autotransformer that allows me to change voltage/speed $50.00 http://www.mpja.com/500VA-0-130VAC-Variable-Autotransformer/productinfo/15162%20TR/ Works great. But it does take time to dial in the speed. Both RPM and cut speed. I found that the 1/8 bit got hot so the plastic melted to easy. I got a blower nozzle for my air comp and put it on to cool off the cutting bit. That really helps. mail me on my website and I'll see if I can find any other tips. taulman

Update 2: Tried the different motors. They give about 3x linear feed as expected. After trying to cut some test parts, I think I am going to reverse my thoughts on missed steps. The output with the new motors is all over the map. I think the missed steps weren't as obvious with the slower rpm motors but the higher frequency signals for these new motors is making the missed steps much more obvious. Parallel port card here I come!

Hello again! Here is an update to my previous post. I checked my parallel port and it is putting out 3.3V signals but I also scoped the steps and everything looks good. I scoped the step signal coming out of the parallel port and the clock input pin to the stepper controller and they have been identical on every scope capture. So I would have to say that I am not dropping steps. I was able to get my hands on some different stepper motors and I hooked them up to the signal generator feeding the stepper motor controller and they top out at 25kHz. I think I am going to try them to give a little more linear feed speed.

Hello, I have been following your Instructible for about 3 months and have constructed a low res cnc to cut parts for the high res table. I had some questions at the bottom but I also wanted to share some of what I have learned. I have even contemplated making a parallel Instructable on using LCNC for this project. But that is for when I am farther along. Here is what I have:

To save some money, I went the LinuxCNC route since it was free to try. Getting the motors to run with LCNC was not difficult. Since there is not a standard CAM module to convert DXF to gcode I had to try third party software. Try as I may, I could not get any software to reliably read in the DXF files from this instructable. I don’t know why. Sooo, I went the long route and re-drew the parts for the precision table in Sketchup and exported the DXF from there. I have made some minor tweeks to the geometry of the parts but nothing drastic. Then I used a free CAM program (HeeksCNC) to create the gcode. Works pretty well. I do have to tweek the resulting gcode a little since LCNC gives some error messages during the import. The messages are actually useful and point you where you need to make some modifications. LCNC has an excellent gcode reference in their manual.

Another difference is the CNC controller I am using. I got mine from http://www.sainsmart.com/new-4-axis-tb6560-cnc-stepper-motor-driver-controller-board-kit-57-two-phase-3a.html This is good for 1/16 microstepping which is what I have it set to. I haven’t noticed any odd behavior with this controller. I am going to verify my parallel port is giving 5VDC and scope the output to double check for missed steps but after cutting many test parts, I am pretty certain that it is behaving well. I can control the motors well from the PC but they have a limited feed rate before they start “misbehaving”. I used a separate signal generator to feed TTL square waves to the controllers to find the top frequency I can supply the motors. My motors top out at about 8Khz with the above microstepping and 24VDC supply. That equates to about 2.5 rev/s or 1/8 in/s. Not very fast. Since your video is time lapsed, approximately how fast is your linear feed rate?? After some research, I found a nice site (http://www.daycounter.com/Calculators/Stepper-Motor-Calculator.phtml) that had good calculations to determine the max rpm for a stepper motor based on inductance and supply voltage. It looks like I picked high inductance low amp motors (57BYGH207 motor from www.circuitspecialist.com) that limit my rpm . I saved a few bucks per motor but I am paying for it in speed. I thought I would pass that along in case anyone else had the same problem. Which motors did you get specifically??? Item 57BYGH104?? I am using a similar type end mill it is just half the length and consequently half the price. It is from amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003BIEUZY/ref=oh_details_o04_s01_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1). All the specs appear to be the same other than the length.

My main reason for writing (other than... Great instructable!!) is I am having problems getting good output on cutting the parts (at least I think so). I have test cut many of the Ystrut pieces on various materials to get a feel for the output before making the final pieces. I have milled the profile in wood to a shallow depth and it looks nice and smooth but when I get to milling the plastic, the edge finish is rather coarse. I am experimenting using thin acrylic and the cutter seems to catch and grab the piece causing it to vibrate in the Z axis. The milling direction is such that the finish edge is conventional milling and not climb milling. I have experimented with different rpm on the cutter but I can only go so low before my generic dremel will stall out. I noticed that you show two different cutting tools attached to your Z axis. The first looks like a dremel type rotary tool and the other looks more like a roto-zip or small router which is shown in your video. Did you need to graduate up to a more powerful cutter?? I am feeding about as fast as my motors will go (110mm/min). I just get bad vibration. Even going to thicker material the bit will tend to grab but the thicker material doesn’t vibrate as much in the Z axis. I have even had the bit grab so much that it pulled it out of the collet during the milling. I replaced the factory collet with an acual dremel collet and that seemed to do the trick. The surface finish is still pretty coarse. I did find that the center drawer slide that I have on my Z axis has a lot of play in the Y axis. It can cause my cutter to “sway” in the Y axis by 1/8” or more! Maybe I have a less than ideal slide. This was causing a LOT of coarseness in the Y axis cuts. As the table would move in the Y direction, the flex of the slide would act like a spring and cause jerky motion. I have been able to compensate for this by putting a tension spring on the end of the slide and connect it back to the Z axis pipe to provide a constant back pressure on the slide. I just wanted to get your feedback to see if you had any tricks you learned and didn’t document in the Instructable. About what would you call reasonable tolerance on the output for the low res table?? 0.012”-0.015”?? Thanks for the help!

Looks like I will also have to remove my Step Signal Opto chip. I scaled up the skull and crossbones test file, included in Mach3, to .5 on first test cut. Things looked ok until I tried a larger 2.5 scale up of the same file. Looks like Y is missing steps, BADLY. The eyes of the skull and cross bones aren't straight. I may also bump up my voltage to 24v after I've removed and jumper the chip location.

It seems the Univelop tb6560 has changed their opto chips. I was going to remove it until I noticed they are no longer a 4 pin chip. It is now an Identical chip to the one next to it. Both are 6N137. I will do more searching.

Also, I think I am doing something wrong converting dxf to g-code for the parts in the precision table. I tried to test a few cuts on wood after converting with lazycam but the bit seems to be constantly following the red travel lines between cuts and not following the blue lines to cut the part itself.

The first day that I got my machine wired up, Z axis, was the only one that wouldn't respond when pressing the page up key, in fact, when pressing page down, the motor would make z axis go up. X and Y worked, but it seemed rather sporadically.

Following day, Z was still the same but now, x and y went in the same direction no matter which direction I pressed for the arrow keys. I searched some tutorials and even messaged taulman to let him know I had it Somewhat working.

Today, I do want taulman suggested within his message and nothing different happened. While looking at a ribbon cable I noticed that I forgot to run a 9v lead to the interface board (board with parallel port). DERP. Made a lead and connected the 7v port, to the 9v bussbar, now everthing is moving as it should!!!

I was wondering how flat the printer bed has to be. I have made my own 3d printer now and the bed is 0.2-0.4 degrees higher towards the left side and 0.3-0.5 degrees higher towards the front. Will this make a noticeable difference in my print product? Luckily I can correct this with some sanding but was wondering if it was worth the trouble. Any suggestions?

Hey taulman, I used your picture as a reference and successfully removed (bypassed) one of the optocouplers but I'm having the same results. I max out at approximately 80rpm before the stepper just stalls and makes a horrible racket. I know your videos are all time-lapse, do you have any that aren't? As it stands right now, I could get the steppers working but movement would be at a snails pace.

Any ideas on where I could look or maybe additional forums I could query would be most appreciated.

Thanks for the instructable,,, you have ideas running through my head so bad right now its pitiful..... 3d plastic printer, saw the 3d metal printers on youtube... I want both... metal be similar but different... will have to see... I know from plastics and to metal, different heat temperatures for melting and such...may be hard for the cooling should hopefully be extremely fast to work as a printer.... so, that would be my biggest dilemma of figuring things out... unfortunately, it would have to cool pretty much as soon as it comes out of the nozzle... thanks again for the instructable....

tcase6, first, thanks for your comments! they mean a lot to all of us that place designs here. As to the metals, yes , I found that I could melt them (Tin and Bizmuth) but couldn't control the cooling as well as I wanted. I'm sure it's doable, it just requires a knowledge of metal thermodynamics. If you do go the way of metals, you might try a system that extrudes an "almost melted" metal. Has a narrow temp range, but might just work.Bizmuth is hard to control, but melts easy. Tin is probably the way to go.taulman

I have built and painted my frame. Scaling the 2by3 up to 48x48x24. Controller boards and steppers arrived a couple of days ago. Off to by my rods, channels, and slides.

Thank you so much for putting this instructable out there for us. I have always wanted to build my own cnc and I never thought I would. Thanks taulman for all your hard work and documentation. I wounldn't be doing this if it wasn't for your great instructable

First, thank you for your kind words!Wow.....that's a large machine, Joe!... You'll be able to make furniture , musical instruments and a small block engine..!Good luck in your build, Joe and thanks again for your comments.taulman

For anyone that reads through the comments and has similar problems due to 3.3v on the parallel port...If you don't want to remove the optoisolators there is something that I have found that works pretty well. From what I have looked at, it is hard to find out if a PCI parallel card will output the 5v necessary. I recently got this (http://www.cnc4pc.com/Store/osc/product_info.php?cPath=33&products_id=203), an output buffer board. It is basically plug and play and installs right in line onto the breakout board. It holds the voltage right at 5 and I was able to get my basic CNC up and running.